


The Storyteller

by BluePhoenix73



Category: Original Work
Genre: New York City, Other, Taxis, inspired by life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-04-25 08:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14374425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluePhoenix73/pseuds/BluePhoenix73
Summary: You interact with a lot of people in your life. Each of them has a story, and all of them are worth telling. One man, a bike tour guide turned taxi driver turned Uber driver, knows that every time someone tells him their story, they give him a little part of themselves, and he's determined to help them live on, if only by remembering them himself. This is a collection of some of the best.A series of (hopefully, more-or-less) short chapters inspired by the eclectic people of New York City, and dedicated to the Uber driver I met during his first-ever case of hiccups (which he thought meant he had a heart problem). You'll always stand out to me.





	1. The Collector

Someone once told me that everyone has a story. 

 _Who_ told me that isn’t important. _That_ they told me is. 

I left my job after I realized just how important it was. I’d spent the small sliver of my life working long, unfulfilled hours to make money for a suite of people who already had plenty to spare, and that wasn’t a venture I wanted to pursue. Instead, I became a… collector, of sorts. From the helm of various vehicles, I began to drive people around the busy city in which I lived. 

Transportation is a funny thing in cities like this: you’re going somewhere, but standing still. For the span of time a person was in my car, my cab, or—in my younger days—my bike carriage, they shared just a little bit of their lives with me. 

It’s surprising how some people open up when they figure they’ll never see you again. 

And it’s true: generally, I _don’t_ see them again. Many of them aren’t even from this city, just people visiting. It makes that time even more precious: two stories touching for a moment. They don’t believe it matters, but I do. 

My life would be different had I not encountered any of the people I had ever encountered, had they not shared their journeys and their destinations with me. 

I am determined to preserve their stories. I share the wisdom they give to me with others I encounter, and in that way, a little bit of them gets shared, too. Every person I take somewhere else, every person I have _ever_ taken _anywhere_ else—I remember their stories. I keep them with me. 

And my story? It becomes interwoven with all of theirs. It will live on as long as they do. Their lives are changed, in even the smallest way, by telling me their stories. And that is enough. 

Someone once told me that everyone has a story: they just need someone to tell it to.


	2. The Woman on the Train

One of the people who really stood out to me was an elderly woman I picked up on a warm, sunny day in April. She stood out initially because she was wearing a long, heavy coat that looked more suited to the preceding season, though she’d matched it with trainers that suggested she knew spring was afoot. But I also got the sense that she didn’t quite know where she was going, or exactly why she was going there: truthfully, I wondered if that was the point. 

She walked as well as one might expect a woman of her age to walk over to my cab and carefully—tentatively—made her way into the back seat. 

“Where you headed?” I asked as she pulled the door closed. With an unsteady hand, she held out an old envelope to me with a phone number written on it in handwriting too neat to be recent. 

“Here’s the number,” she said, her voice thick with some flavor of Boston accent. 

I didn't quite understand what she had given me. “Ma’am, this isn’t an address."

“It’s in Elmhurst,” she insisted. “That’s the number.” 

I sighed and pulled out my smartphone. Fortunately, searching the phone number brought up a result: a popular shopping mall about an hour away by car. 

“You were going to take the train? Here?” I asked, handing her back her envelope and setting the fare meter. 

“I always take the train,” she sighed as we pulled away from the curb. “But not today. Construction on the tracks.” 

“Ah. Sorry to interrupt your routine then.” 

“ _You’re_ not troubling me,” she said, looking out the window at the people we passed. 

“Anyone interesting out there?” 

“Always is. Best reason to take the train,” she chuckled. “You see all kinds. Fun to watch. And the kids these days and their music and their phones—like yours—they’re… something.” 

“Do you have any kids or grandkids?” 

“Oh no, no,” she said, shifting a little in her seat so she could meet my eyes in the rearview mirror. “I never wanted any of that. Makes for a long night now and again, but I get by.” 

“So who are you meeting at the mall?” 

“Mall?” she rubbed her forehead. “Oh, no one special. It’s just important that I get there.” 

As I drove her along, she shared with me the story of a friend she’d had a long time ago. She couldn’t remember why, but she and her friend had lost touch over the years. She fondly recalled watching the latest episode of some television show with her, back when televisions were brand new, and taking walks while they exchanged gossip and talked about life. They sounded like they had been close friends. 

She paid her fare as I pulled up to the mall. I parked my cab, opening the door for my passenger and helping her out of the back seat. 

“Thank you,” she said with a slight smile. “It was nice of you to listen to my silly old stories.” 

“Thank you for telling them to me,” I said, closing the door behind her. “I liked hearing about your friend.” 

“I miss her,” the woman sighed, clutching her bag and staring at the mall. After a moment, she smiled at me. “Have a good day, dear.” 

“You too, ma’am,” I said with a nod, sliding back into the front seat of my cab. 

As I checked my mirrors, I noticed the woman had left her old envelope behind. I reached back to grab it and whipped the door open, trying spot her coat, her gait, anything that might distinguish her from the comparatively sparse crowd, but she’d disappeared. 

I put my flashers on and turned the engine off, locking the car behind me. I walked briskly into the mall, hoping to find a help desk or a security office. I found... someone. 

“Excuse me, ma’am?” I asked the young woman sitting behind the counter. She turned to me with a grin. “I wonder if you know an older woman, about...” I gestured with my hand. “This tall? Short, white, curly hair? She’s in a long, black coat and tennis shoes today—she might come here often.” 

The young woman’s expression shifted to something between confusion and recognition. 

“I just drove her here in my cab,” I continued. “She left this. I got the sense it was important to her.” I slid the envelope across the desk to her. 

She picked it up with manicured nails and examined it thoroughly. “Oh... how... how did you get this?” 

“A passenger left it in my cab, like I said.” 

She blinked. “You did say that, sorry...” 

“Is everything okay?” 

“This is the number for this desk, but…” she hesitated. “I recognize this handwriting. Vaguely. I took over my grandmother’s job here, and this was her friend’s handwriting. After her accident, we thought she...” she shook her head. “It’s not really my place to say. If I see her, I’ll be sure to return it.” 

Not wanting to pry despite my curiosity, I thanked her and returned to my cab. I come into different people’s stories at different times, and sometimes that means I don’t get to know the ending. But as I returned to work, I realized—or, perhaps, I convinced myself—that I don’t always need to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope she got where she was going.


	3. Mr. Rubik

Sometimes, they barely talk. Sometimes, I don’t even know their names. That was the case with the young man who flagged me down during rush hour one evening. Based on the address he gave me, I think he was going home. From the way he was dressed, I guessed he was probably in college somewhere: clothes looked straight out of the 90s, with textured, light-wash blue jeans, a denim and vinyl letterman jacket, and dark tortoiseshell glasses. His dark hair was styled into gravity-defying corkscrews. Maybe it was some fashion fad I was missing.

He didn’t speak much besides giving me his address, just sat there listening to his music, quiet and respectful.

Listening to his music… and fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube.

His was nothing fancy: it was exactly what you’d think of when you think of a Rubik’s Cube, the 3x3x3 cube that exploded onto the market in the 70s. It’s still a big deal to me when someone can solve one—try as I might, I certainly never could—and from the sounds of it, the young man in the back seat of my car was struggling with his, resetting it every few minutes. Perhaps it was some kind of strategy, I thought. Getting a new perspective on a difficult challenge. It certainly wouldn’t be a bad one.

It was only when we were stuck in traffic crossing a congested bridge that I discovered I was incorrect. I glanced at him in my rearview mirror to discover that he was, in fact, solving the puzzle every few minutes, resetting it without skipping a beat, not even stopping to admire the feat he had just accomplished. Perhaps to him, it was nothing, but there was almost half a car length in front of me before I was able to tear my eyes from his rhythmic movements. It was almost as though he was solving the cube to the beat of his music, though it could have matched up with my engine, or whatever song was drifting softly from my speakers. Perhaps he was working to a rhythm larger than any of those things, one I couldn’t comprehend… or perhaps I was allowing myself a flight of fancy.

A honk from the car behind me urged me forward, nearer to the exit I needed to drop the young man off. As we all began inching along, no one able to use the gas pedal but no longer needing to remain quite so attached to the brake, the young man received a phone call, answering through his headphones.

“Hey Mom,” he said. “Yeah, I did, just like you asked.” He glanced out the window, his hands still busy solving the Rubik’s Cube. It was as though he wasn’t speaking to anyone, as though there were nothing else to distract him: he carried on his conversation with ease, even solving the Cube and resetting it again.

“Probably about… 20 minutes?” he guessed, estimating the time it would take before he reached his destination. “We’re stuck in traffic, so it could be more, could be less.” He listened for a moment. “Mmhmm. Okay. Okay. Love you too, Mom. Bye.”

We eventually cleared the traffic jam and I got him to his house. He tipped me in cash and thanked me for the ride, and I smiled as he walked into a home that, while better-kept than many of its neighbors, had seen better days.

I wondered about him as I drove around, searching for my next job. He looked intelligent, and likely had a lot of promise. I hoped he had the ability to realize it. Driving through his neighborhood, though, my heart sank a little: schools in areas like these were often underfunded, and he probably didn’t have access to the types of classes that would nourish his mind. Still… there were ways. If someone like me could look at him and see potential, then certainly someone who could make a difference in his life could, as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can do many things, but I'll never be able to do what he can do.
> 
> Sorry this took so long to post, I've had some health issues lately, and those have complicated... just about everything. Oops.

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure: this is NOT going to update regularly. I write a new chapter when I'm inspired by someone who strikes me, and then I have to figure out how to frame it. Nevertheless, I hope you like this idea and will stick with it for a while! Thanks for reading! :)


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